Don’t Ask Siri About Tiananmen Square

Apple has unveiled Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking versions of iPhone voice-controlled personality Siri, known for her subservient manner and witicisms. But Siri isn’t willing to crack a joke about everything. It may or may not be a glitch, but she really does not want to discuss Tiananmen Square with you, so stick to asking questions about the weather and where to buy things. The Wall Street Journal writes:

Some users have tested her devotion to free speech by asking her questions about the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square crackdown—a topic she seems loathe to broach. One screenshot posted to Twitter shows Siri responding to the question “Do you know about the Tiananmen incident?” with the answer: “I couldn’t find any appointments related to ‘Do you know about Tiananmen.’” A second try with the question rephrased – “What happened on June 4, 1989?”—produced an even stranger response: “I’m sorry, the person you are looking for is not in your address book.”

Someone should ask for directions to the geo coordinates for Tiananmen, just to see what happens.

Redacted

China has ensured that no one will ever forget Tiananmen Square by so adamantly refusing to admit anything ever happened.

http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

very true
by making the incident at Kent State a matter of public record
and having a hit song about the Kent State massacre
the whole mess just disappeared from the information landscape

which is why they call that place
The Land of the Free

Redacted

I’m not sure why you always reply in prose, but yes. You are correct.

http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

actually
the form would be more poetic than prosaic
but I have discovered that the new generation is
barely literate and unable to follow complex thoughts
expressed prosaically
but if I break them down into small bit sized chunks
some comprehension of the complex becomes possible

Calypso_1

It also falls under the ‘rhyme-as-reason effect’ cognitive bias in which a statesments underlying truth is percieved to be enhanced by an heuristic processing of information content via aesthetic presentation.
(and in saying so, I am not critiquing your content, merely pointing out an aspect of the mechanism.)

censorship is not the exclusive domain of the Chinese gov
Apple, Google and the US.gov also regularly censor content

I wonder what happens when you ask about Kent State?

MoralDrift

True but China is ham fisted and rather lame about its censorship. Also dirty words are slightly different than covering up such an important event. The funny thing is that so many western observers believe it was largely about democracy when many accounts actually point to the main theme being social justice during the shift to capitalism.

You can say anything you want in China, just dont actually endanger the ability of the ruling class to profit off of the people…then there is a problem. Oh excuse me I meant dont disrupt harmony….as in the status quo

I’m no fan of the US either but the two are more similar then is commonly let on

http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

> I’m no fan of the US either but the two are more similar then is commonly let on.

I couldn’t agree more.

The US is much more of police state and
attempts to appear more menacing to its citizens;
The Chinese government is afraid of its citizenry and therefore more placating.
The US government is not.

However, when it comes to “freedom of speech”
they have no such tradition in their 5000 year history
and they don’t pretend otherwise. .

MoralDrift

funny right? you always imagine China to be the uber repressive police state, and yet you don’t see people acting strange around cops here…

You just assume living in the US that everyone is afraid of cops

http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

what do you compare freedom to?
if I hadn’t lived in China
I wouldn’t have know what a friggin’ police state the US is

yeah, the whole cop-people dynamic in China
is the exact opposite of the US
not only aren’t the people afraid of them
they actually think of them as public servants
imagine that!

Hobag

Cops in China are not that bad it is the communist party “citizens brigade” you have to worry about. Let me guess if the citizens do it it is not oppression it’s “justice”? ….right

http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

in my experience
cop/person interaction is far greater in the US
China has 4 times less cops per capita
most Chinese cops are weaponless
hardly any cops walks a beat
no cop cars cruising the hood or highways

not saying its perfect
just a lot less intense than the US is now

http://www.planetarybargains.com/Blog/ PBScott

I have visited China, and have lived in Asia for nearly two decades. Currently I am in a country without freedom of speech…so I will not mention it’s name here.

Without freedom of speech, I have found I am wary of expressing my opinions constantly 24/7/365. It is a simple and efficient way to keep me always afraid of standing up for myself, as it does the people around me. Though I speak my mind 99% of the time, I have developed a powerful self filtering mechanism, as have the people around me, and that keeps the ruling elite, and very corrupt in power.

I very much hope that China soon gets it’s freedom of speech, and that I can get my own back also very soon.

Monkey See Monkey Do

Whats that old Confucius saying. oh yeh, ‘Whether your getting fucked from the front or fucked from behind, your still getting fucked.’

DeepCough

“Why don’t you ask the kids at Tiananmen square?

Was Fashion the reason why they were there?”

“They disguise it, Hypnotize it

Television made you buy it.”

“Hypnotize”–System of a Down

charigun

lmao you ask her the same question about any incident and she’ll either go “I can’t answer that” or “should I search the web for you”. Only things programmed in her system are basic day-to-day questions properly.

Via Google's Official Blog: About two years ago, we launched our interactive Transparency Report. We started by disclosing data about government requests. Since then, we’ve been steadily adding new features,...